I have failed to find the noun demergature in any dictionary, old or new, although some of them have the verb demerge. Demergature is a fine example of the officialese of the Latin type found in 19th century journalism. It is a safe word, and the value of such words is obvious, especially to journalists who have to be extremely careful not to anticipate the verdict of a coroner's jury. I came across the following in Ivor Brown's Chosen Words, published in 1953. A friend of his had come across the death notice of a West Country man in an old newspaper; it went like this: `March 25, 1802, John Crookshanks, bachelor, late of London, demergature'. Brown's correspondent liked the word: `This example of early-Dorset officialese has the advantage of describing death by drowning - criminal, self-inflicted, or accidental - where at present no single word for it is in use.'
Fatality is another word much favoured by journalists, as it covers accident, suicide, manslaughter or murder without any risk of prejudging the issue. Fatality originally meant being predetermined by destiny, but it came to mean anything to which fate condemned a man. So, lastly, it was an accident or disaster.
Demergature is coined from the Latin demergere, to plunge down into, submerge. However demerge, described as `verb, obsolete', finds a place in Oxford, which quotes John Donne from 1610: `Our soules demerged into those bodies are allowed to partake Earthly pleasures'. And it quotes the great Boyle from 1669: `Air breathing forth through the water in which it was demerged.'
The verb sloister was sent to me recently by an Antrim correspondent, Jane Ross. I've heard slaister in Donegal. They both mean to be engaged in wet, dirty work; to bedaub, spatter, plaster; to make a wet, dirty mess. In Donegal I heard a mother telling off her young daughter, who was preparing to go off to a dance, for slaistering her face. I've also heard the verb used of a man walking through mud, `slaisterin' his way home.' Slaister is also found in Scotland, and, apparently, only in the northern counties of England in all the above senses. Slaistrel, a messy worker, is a Northumberland derivative.
What good words beginning with sl- we have for messy, mucky things: slobber, slob, slubber, slime, sludge, slop, slush, slotter and the medieval slotterbugges, dirty people, come to mind. The origins of these can be traced, but I have no idea where the fine word slaister comes from, I'm sorry to say.